2008 archive
Get Pine View Farm on Your Mobile Device 0
I’ve turned my mobile plug-in back on. It seems to have nothing to do with the connection problems experienced by my brother some users.
Bushonomics 0
Bank runs (emphasis added).
I’ve heard about bank runs from my mother. They happened in the Great Depression.
In a move that eclipsed the enforced rescue of Northern Rock (a British bank–ed.) six months ago, the 85-year-old Wall Street institution admitted it was looking for a buyer after being thrown a temporary lifeline by rival bank JP Morgan Chase guaranteed by the US central bank.
George Bush sought to calm fears of a deep recession in the world’s biggest economy when he said that despite the current “tough times”, the US economy remained fundamentally sound.
But the president’s words did nothing to dampen speculation on Wall Street that other blue-chip investment banks may also be facing a cash crisis as a result of their exposure to the collapsing US real estate market.
The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s responded to the rescue announcement by cutting Bear Stearns’s credit rating to BBB – the second-lowest investment grade – putting more pressure on its beleaguered stock.
Speculation about Bear had mounted for days. By Thursday, worried institutional clients were withdrawing large sums of money. That evening, the Fed’s governors unanimously voted to come to the bank’s aid by guaranteeing a 28-day loan provided by JP Morgan Chase. “Bear Stearns has been subjected to a significant amount of rumour and speculation over the past week,” said Bear’s chief executive, Alan Schwartz. “Concern on the part of counter parties, on the part of customers and lenders, got to the point where a lot of people wanted to get their cash out.”
S(pl)urge 0
I told you so.
Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that “no one” in the U.S. and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation,” or in the provision of basic public services.
John Cole seems to have taken it harder than I did.
Cause–>Effect, Reprise 1
A while ago, I explained how conservatism is morally and intellectually bankrupt, pointing out that, when conservative policies fail, conservatives claim that X (the policy-maker waving their flag) must not be a “true conservative” and therefore must be responsible for the failure.
Comes now a true believer to demonstrate a corollary to that postulate (not a theory, a postulate, that is, a fundamental truth from which flows the remainder of reasoning):
When conservative polices fail, it is not because they were wrong, well, from the git-go, but because they were betrayed by Bad People who, ergo, must not be “true conservatives.”
Douglas Feith, one of the architects of the of the War in Iraq, has delivered himself of a mighty tome in which, according to news reports, he blames everyone except Donald Rumsfeld and, natch, himself, for the debacle in Iraqcle.
These people never made a mistake for which they took responsibility.
In the world of conservative ideology, the failure of their polices is always someone else’s fault, because they are always right; they are never wrong.
Just ask them.
Among the disclosures made by Feith in “War and Decision,” scheduled for release next month by HarperCollins, is Bush’s declaration, at a Dec. 18, 2002, National Security Council meeting, that “war is inevitable.” The statement came weeks before U.N. weapons inspectors reported their initial findings on Iraq and months before Bush delivered an ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Feith, who says he took notes at the meeting, registered it as a “momentous comment.”
Although he acknowledges “serious errors” in intelligence, policy and operational plans surrounding the invasion, Feith blames them on others outside the Pentagon and notes that “even the best planning” cannot avoid all problems in wartime. While he says the decision to invade was correct, he judges that the task of creating a viable and stable Iraqi government was poorly executed and remains “grimly incomplete.”
Contemporary conservatism is not an ideology. It’s a circle of jerks.
Darlington 1
(For the NASCAR challenged, Darlington is a race track.)
I was listening to yesterday’s Talk of the Nation, which had its regular Wednesday “Political Junkie” feature.
One of the callers asked an interesting question.
She pointed out that, in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, supporters of the Clinton campaign have brought up race three times.
Supporters of the Obama campaign have not brought it up (except in response to comments from the other side).
Her question was (paraphrased, because I’m not going to listen to the entire podcast over again once more redundantly just to get an exact quote), “What does that tell you?”
Well, indeed, what does that tell you?
Primary Redux 0
Phillybits sums it up.
Campaign Round-Up 0
Josh Marshall:
Not Only Is Experience Not Everything, It’s Just, Well, Not 0
I’m behind on my Fact Check dot org postings since my server crash, but I’m catching up with this one. Follow the link for the full analysis (emphasis added to highlight hypocrisy inconsistency:
- Clinton claims to have “negotiated open borders” in Macedonia to fleeing Kosovar refugees. But the Macedonian border opened a full day before she arrived, and her meetings with Macedonian officials were too brief to allow for much serious negotiating.
- Clinton’s activities “helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.” Irish officials are divided as to how helpful Clinton’s actions were, and key players agree that she was not directly involved in any actual negotiations.
- Clinton has repeatedly referenced her “dangerous” trip to Bosnia. She fails to mention, however, that the Bosnian war had officially ended three months before her visit – or that she made the trip with her 16-year-old daughter and two entertainers.
- Both Bill and Hillary Clinton claim that Hillary privately championed the use of U.S. troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda. That conversation left no public record, however, as U.S. policy was explicitly to stay out of Rwanda, and officials say that the use of U.S. troops was never considered.
- Clinton’s tough speech on human rights delivered to a Beijing audience is as advertised, though Clinton herself has been dismissive of speeches that aren’t backed by solutions.
Bushonomics 0
At the pump, gas prices surged 2.1 cents overnight to a record national average of $3.267 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Gas prices are likely to rise much higher this spring; estimates range from about $3.50 a gallon in the Energy Department’s latest forecast to $3.75 or even $4 a gallon according to some analysts.
Remember that, at the start of the War in Iraq (which the Great Minds in the Current Federal Administration claimed would be paid for by Iraqi oil), oil was running at about $25 a barrel.
Meanwhile, CEOs take their toll:
The Horsham-based builder of luxury homes did not disclose how many votes came out in favor of the plan. But a shareholder activist group said executives disclosed at the shareholders meeting that it was at least 50 percent. Media were barred from attending the event.
CEO Robert Toll didn’t get a bonus for 2007 as the housing market slumped. But under the new CEO bonus plan, the company said, he would have received $6.56 million.
The CEO bonus plan “pays him simply for existing,” said Jennifer O’Dell, deputy director of corporate affairs for the Laborers’ International Union of North America, a union whose pension funds own at least 200,000 shares of Toll Brothers. “You should pay CEOs for performance.”
It Is Difficult Not To View This News with Glee 0
I would say he fit right in. After all, one is known by the company one keeps.
But, you know, every dollar the NRCC lost is another dollar they cannot devote to further undermining the Constitution of the United States of America and to making the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.
The fellow should have a nice future at KBR.
The NRCC launched an internal probe and contacted the FBI in January after learning that Ward “apparently fabricated and submitted 2006 financial statements to the NRCC’s bank,” according to a memo issued by the committee today. Some details of the probe have been reported previously, but today’s memo and press briefing by a lawyer retained by the committee marked the fullest public accounting so far of the unfolding scandal.
Compact Flourescent Bulbs Prevent Waste 0
They do!
I bought three of them six months ago, and I haven’t had an incandescent bulb burn out since!